The wise old Japanese have a saying: “Stay close to your friends but even closer to your enemies”. But this is stretching things – a joint signing between Ford, Renault-Nissan and Daimler for technology sharing.
But the unlikely triple-team makes sense as the automotive giants plan to jointly develop a common fuel cell electric vehicle system with massively reduced investment costs.
Of course hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles are zero emission 24-7 and the Ford, Renault-Nissan, Daimler plans call for the world’s first affordable, mass-market fuel cell electric vehicles to be on the market by 2017.
Significantly as Australia heads into an election year where for sure environmental protection will be a talking-point, the teaming up of global automotive giants to jointly produce fuel cell electric vehicles sends a clear message of the automotive industry’s clean-air direction and sets a strong message to suppliers and policy-makers to get with the program in terms of infrastructure and hydrogen refueling stations to support the mass-marketing of these zero-emission vehicles.
So, environmentalists and governments everywhere: with Ford, Renault-Nissan and Daimler now teaming up, this is the ‘light bulb moment’ you’ve been waiting for, the moment when the car industry charts a path to mass-market, zero emission vehicles with every-day practicality demanded by buyers in every corner of the globe. Are you with us?
